Search form

Search form

Financial constraints are hindering two of the U.N. Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization's projects to strengthen science capacity and policy in the developing world. The Global Observatory of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Instruments project and the Science, Technology and Innovation Global Assessment Program are still under way despite funding delays. "At the present time we are looking for extra budgetary resources to develop both initiatives fully," UNESCO natural science division director Lidia Brito said.

Related Summaries

A research team at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., found a protein that helps convert sound into electrical signals, and could help certain cases of genetic deafness. Using newborn mice that were deaf, the team added the TMHS protein to the mice's sensory cells to give them some ability to hear. "The language of the brain is electricity," said lead researcher Ulrich Mueller. The findings could potentially be used in genetic therapy with newborn humans who can't hear.

A report published Nov. 29 by the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief emphasizes the role of science in evaluating projects, creating interventions and helping patients stay in treatment. The report "is an attempt to take this science and translate it into policy and programs in a much more aggressive way," said co-author David Haroz, the special assistant to the principal deputy U.S. global AIDS coordinator. PEPFAR has spent almost $46 billion fighting AIDS, HIV and related infections, since its 2003 inception, and President Barack Obama has asked for an additional $6.4 billion for the next fiscal year.

Engineers are working on a solution to concerns that a rapidly spinning percussive drill on NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars could cause an electrical short that could damage its entire structure. "It's almost like the drill grabs the rover and shakes the whole thing electronically," said Rob Manning, Curiosity chief engineer. The team discovered the problem too late in the project to rebuild the drill, but put in an extra series of wires that could temporarily protect the rover's power bus.

Researchers have dated the oldest-known depictions of a pharaoh -- found in rock carvings not far from the Nile River in southern Egypt -- to between 3200 B.C. and 3100 B.C., according to a study published the journal Antiquity. "It's really the end of prehistory and the beginning of history [in Egypt]," researcher Maria Gatto said of the carvings, which were found in the 1890s but remained in obscurity until it was rediscovered in 2008.

Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada each received $10 million from NASA to help them certify their private spaceflight systems, which must meet NASA standards before they can carry crews to and from the International Space Station. It's the "first major, fixed-price contract" with private flight companies, said Ed Mango of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA plans to use at least one of the vehicles by 2017 to ferry astronauts into low-Earth orbit.